PLANO — Small dance companies have been springing up in North Texas left and right. One of the latest is Dallas Neo-Classical Ballet, launched in 2011 by Victoria Dolph and Emilie Skinner, members of the veteran troupe Contemporary Ballet Dallas.

Judging from its Spring Mixed Repertoire Concert, the company is still finding its legs and its audience. A small crowd Sunday night at the Courtyard Theatre in Plano watched the group and its guests perform 10 short pieces of original choreography that emphasized pointe work and partnering.

Five of the 10 pieces were duets or trios, but the more successful dances tended to be for larger groups. In these pieces, the simple choreography was elevated by the spatial relationships created by the placement and movement of multiple dancers.

One exception was Under the Moonlight, a jazzy number choreographed by Michael Scott and the company, and danced by Jaclyn Brewer-Poole and Brandon McGee. Sweet and lush, it featured a series of romantic lifts and carries.

Guest company DGDG (Danielle Georgiou Dance Group) set the bar high early with the slinky, sexy What This Was Never About, a reworking of a similarly titled Georgiou piece that concerns itself with the lies and self-deception perpetuated by modern institutions.

Almost throughout, one of the 12 dancers shook her backside mindlessly, and often three or four scenes played out at once. At one point, a trio rotated their hips, slapped their behinds and ran their hands up their legs. Later, Georgiou maniacally moved her hand in front of her face. The overall attitude was one of disaffection.

With Skinner, Georgiou also co-choreographed the night’s quirkiest duet, the jazzy, cartoonish What a Doll! Set to a Fats Waller ditty, it essayed the slapstick relationship between the overly made-up but limp title character (Sandra Plunkett) and her owner (C. Nicholas Morris), who donned the plaid pants and bow tie of a vaudeville performer.

Beautiful costumes and a tightly arrayed chorus of seven ballerinas lent mystery to The Nest, choreographed by Jaclyn Sartore and danced by Collin County Ballet Theatre. It was another example of how to create interest through the use of patterns and formations.

Dallas Neo-Classical principal dancer Lea Essmyer showed stellar pointe work in other pieces, but the choreography often amounted to little more than feats and poses. In Dolph’s The Formation, for instance, Essmyer and Michael Stone engaged in daring balancing acts that put their considerable skills on display but didn’t add up to a compelling whole.

Manuel Mendoza is a Dallas freelance writer. He blogs at dfwdance.wordpress.com.

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